A double standard on academic freedom in the Middle East - Baltimore Sun

[defcon]

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A double standard on academic freedom in the Middle East (http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=T&ct=us/0-0&fd=R&url=http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.boycott17sep17,0,4476313.story&cid=1120880528&ei=IN_uRuueFZ3C0gHG2t3wCw)
Baltimore Sun, United States - 12 hours ago
George Bisharat, a professor of law at Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, writes frequently on the Middle East. ...
REPORT: The 31st Middle East Peace Initiative (http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=T&ct=us/0-1&fd=R&url=http://www.masnet.org/views.asp%3Fid%3D4327&cid=1120880528&ei=IN_uRuueFZ3C0gHG2t3wCw) Muslim American Society
Palestinian economy key to peace process, Brown says (http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=T&ct=us/0-2&fd=R&url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,2171270,00.html&cid=1120880528&ei=IN_uRuueFZ3C0gHG2t3wCw) Guardian Unlimited
UK: Fixing PA economy vital to peace (http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=T&ct=us/0-3&fd=R&url=http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite%3Fcid%3D1189411422127%26pagename%3DJPost%252FJPArt icle%252FShowFull&cid=1120880528&ei=IN_uRuueFZ3C0gHG2t3wCw) Jerusalem Post
Financial Times (http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=T&ct=us/0-4&fd=R&url=http://www.ft.com/cms/s/9f279364-6549-11dc-bf89-0000779fd2ac.html&cid=1120880528&ei=IN_uRuueFZ3C0gHG2t3wCw) - Reuters UK (http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=T&ct=us/0-5&fd=R&url=http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKL1791252920070917&cid=1120880528&ei=IN_uRuueFZ3C0gHG2t3wCw)
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[Abbas]

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.boycott17sep17,0,4476313.story


Two hundred thousand Palestinian children began school in the Gaza Strip this month without a full complement of textbooks. Why? Because Israel, which maintains a stranglehold over this small strip of land along the Mediterranean even after withdrawing its settlers from there in 2005, considers paper, ink and binding materials not to be "fundamental humanitarian needs."

*Israel held up delivery of materials needed for printing textbooks. As a result, Gaza students began the year facing a 30 percent shortage of texts.

*No full-page advertisements in major American newspapers have publicized Israel's violations of Palestinian children's right to an education. No editors, syndicated columnists or presidents of major universities in this country have denounced this callous measure. Our politicians have demanded no remedial action. Instead, they continue, verbally and materially, to support Israel in its near-total blockade of 1.5 million Palestinians, kids and all.

Israel's trampling of Palestinian students' right to education - the key to a lifetime of opportunity - has rarely evoked official protest from American leaders. The Israeli army has closed Palestinian universities for years at a time. Israeli military authorities have barred Palestinian occupational therapy students from traveling from Gaza to the West Bank to obtain vital clinical training.

Hundreds of Israeli checkpoints and roadblocks can turn a routine trip to a local school into a harrowing ordeal. Israeli gunfire has even killed Palestinian schoolchildren sitting in their classrooms. None of these offenses has merited so much as a congressional resolution, let alone more serious efforts to curb Israeli behavior, such as government-imposed sanctions.

In response to this policy double standard - complete indulgence of Israel on the one hand, and indifference to violations of Palestinian rights on the other hand - a movement has emerged for a citizens' boycott of Israel. Churches, unions and professional associations in the United States, Canada, Europe and South Africa have urged a variety of nonviolent measures to compel Israel's compliance with international law.

American Presbyterians have studied divesting church funds from firms that profit from continuing Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands. Unison, the United Kingdom's 1.3 million-member union of public servants, voted in June to boycott Israeli goods. In May, a British union of professors opened a yearlong debate over a possible boycott of Israeli academic institutions.

The latter action provoked particularly indignant protest by Israel's U.S. supporters as an offense against "academic freedom." Yet many Israeli academic institutions either benefit from or participate in Israeli government actions that violate Palestinian rights.

Tel Aviv University sits in part over land belonging to Sheikh Muwannis, a Palestinian village whose residents were expelled by Jewish militias or fled in fear in March 1948. These and other Palestinian refugees have been denied their right to return to their homes or to receive compensation for their seized properties.

Hebrew University in Jerusalem uses more than 800 acres of land illegally expropriated from Palestinian private owners in the West Bank after the 1967 war. Bar-Ilan University has established a branch in an illegal Israeli settlement in the West Bank.

The threatened boycott would target Israeli institutions, not individuals. Thus, formal research and other agreements with Israeli universities would be suspended. But invitations to Israeli professors to join conferences or to publish in foreign journals would continue.

Nonetheless, it is likely that the boycott would impose limitations on freedom for some Israeli academics. Is this fair?

Boycotts are always somewhat blunt tools, and they inevitably impose costs on some who are undeserving of them. That was true of the boycott of apartheid South Africa, which applied to all academics - as well as athletes, businesspeople, artists and others. At the time, the international community weighed the cost to academic freedom against the advancement of justice and equal rights for black South Africans, and the choice was clear.

Two hundred thousand Palestinian schoolchildren are wondering how the world will respond faced with a similar choice today.



George Bisharat, a professor of law at Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, writes frequently on the Middle East. His e-mail is bisharat@uchastings.edu.

[Abbas]

Thread Moved.

[Alon9]

[url] Two hundred thousand Palestinian children began school in the Gaza Strip ...

*The Janjaweed held up delivery of food for Sudanese children. As a result, thousands of children died of hunger.

*No full-page advertisements in major American newspapers have publicized Al Saddiq Al Mahdi's violations of Sudanese children's right to exist. No editors, syndicated columnists or presidents of major universities in any country have denounced this callous disregard of HUMAN life. Instead, the world continues to completely disregard the fate of millions of destitute children who can barely scourge anything to eat.

The world's trampling of Sudanese children's right to eat - the key to living - has rarely evoked any protest from any leader of any country on this planet. *The Janjaweed have butchered thousands at a time. Al Saddiq Al Mahdi's military authorities have raped, raided and bombed, killing civilians based on ethnicity, raping women, stealing land goods, and herds of livestock.

True genocide is routinely committed in too many countries around the world, and yet none of these offenses has merited so much as a congressional resolution, let alone more serious efforts to curb such behavior, such as government-imposed sanctions.

No response from the world at large was heard about any of said atrocities. Not when Afghanis butchered one another in civil war which resulted in more than a million civilians dead. Nor when Muslim extremists in Somalia butchered other Muslim extremists and civilians in their own civil war, resulting in 400 to 550 THOUSAND dead. Did anyone care or even hear about the Pakistani invasion of 1971 to Bangladesh, that resulted in the butcher of between 1.4 and 2 million? Nope.

Genocide on horrendous scales happen all over the world, mostly to Muslim civilian population by Muslim extremists, does anyone care? I don't know about other countries but I do know that my country has absorbed hundreds if not thousands of refugees from poor regions in Africa that fled the butchering, just out of the kindness of our hearts. Can you show me an Arab\Muslim country that does the same!? Nope. All "you" seem to care about is blaming every wrong the world has on us, and giving money to the "just" cause of murdering as many Israelis as possible in "holy martyrdom" in the name of the "All merciful(?)" Allah.

[M Nabil]

Lebanon, Jordan and Europe are full of Palestinian refugees expelled from their land by "israel".

[mig21bis]

"Can you show me an Arab\Muslim country that does the same!?"

++++ Many....palestinian refugees live many arab countrys....


How many arab countrys are doing same as Israel :


Israel To Turn Away Sudanese Refugees

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/08/19/world/main3182226.shtml

[mig21bis]

*No full-page advertisements in major American newspapers have publicized Al Saddiq Al Mahdi's violations of Sudanese children's right to exist. No editors, syndicated columnists or presidents of major universities in any country have denounced this callous disregard of HUMAN life. Instead, the world continues to completely disregard the fate of millions of destitute children who can barely scourge anything to eat.

++++ About 10 million children are every year dying of poverty, hunger and illness....

Who is mainly helping them.....you guessed right...that same UN that is giving those damn resolutions towards to Israel....and towards to many other countrys also....

http://www.unicef.org/









The world's trampling of Sudanese children's right to eat - the key to living - has rarely evoked any protest from any leader of any country on this planet. *The Janjaweed have butchered thousands at a time. Al Saddiq Al Mahdi's military authorities have raped, raided and bombed, killing civilians based on ethnicity, raping women, stealing land goods, and herds of livestock.

++++ Thats right....those are whole world issues to solve....






True genocide is routinely committed in too many countries around the world, and yet none of these offenses has merited so much as a congressional resolution, let alone more serious efforts to curb such behavior, such as government-imposed sanctions.

++++ In many cases...who mainly we can blame....thats right...you guess right again...its the same old UN....and its security council and veto right of permanent members....who many times veto resolutions when something should be done....




No response from the world at large was heard about any of said atrocities. Not when Afghanis butchered one another in civil war which resulted in more than a million civilians dead.

++++ Have you verified this ? Checked from UN archives ?

Try this....type in search "afganistan"

http://www.un.org/search/

( found 272 hits )



Nor when Muslim extremists in Somalia butchered other Muslim extremists and civilians in their own civil war, resulting in 400 to 550 THOUSAND dead.

+++++ Same search give : 62500 hits




Did anyone care or even hear about the Pakistani invasion of 1971 to Bangladesh, that resulted in the butcher of between 1.4 and 2 million? Nope.

++++ I remember that....71500 hits




Genocide on horrendous scales happen all over the world, mostly to Muslim civilian population by Muslim extremists, does anyone care?

++++ All we care....so where was US marines then ? Oh yeah...they happen to be stuck to some other clash...and where is oil....and US interests to protect....

And where are international troops then....sorry...under construction long time now because some UN members are against of them....



I don't know about other countries but I do know that my country has absorbed hundreds if not thousands of refugees from poor regions in Africa that fled the butchering, just out of the kindness of our hearts.

++++ What a earth ? Do you think that Israel is only place where is refugees ?

Learn and feel pain :

http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/home






Can you show me an Arab\Muslim country that does the same!? Nope.

++++ http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/home



All "you" seem to care about is blaming every wrong the world has on us, and giving money to the "just" cause of murdering as many Israelis as possible in "holy martyrdom" in the name of the "All merciful(?)" Allah.

++++ Black hole in your head ?